Blair Calvo was almost perfect on Tuesday night, and his team needed every bit of it.

The Nease pitcher threw a no-hitter, allowing just two walks and striking out five, as the Panthers topped Menendez 8-0 in the District 4-5A baseball semifinals.

“We’ve been riding Blair (Calvo) all year; this is nothing new,” Nease coach Brian Thomas said. “He’s a great kid with a special arm. It’s definitely nice to know that we’ll have him back next year, too.”

Calvo took a bid for a perfect game through four innings, finally allowing the Falcons (10-16) a base runner when he walked Michael Peil in the fifth. He would give a free base to one more player in the game, Josh Pagliei in the sixth, but that would be all.

“It was probably around that fifth inning when I realized that I hadn’t allowed a hit,” Calvo said. “It’s not something that I think about, I wasn’t worried at all about it.”

With the opposing offense stymied, only one thing was missing for the Panthers (21-4) — runs of their own.

The fifth inning took care of that. After stranding five batters through the first four innings and connecting on just one hit, a single by Dan Williams in the second, the Panthers pushed across five runs in a torrid outburst to put the team and its pitcher at ease. After Jordan Petkoski, Brooks Calvo — Blair’s brother — and Sean Bryan loaded the bases with one out on a single, an error and a walk, third baseman Dan Brookman drove a shot straight through the infield to score two runs and put runners on first and third.

Then came a little luck. Sean O’Farrell hit a soft grounder to the shortstop that ended in a wild throw into foul territory, allowing all three runners to score as O’Farrell barely beat the throw to the plate.

One inning, five runs on two hits and three errors, would be more than enough for their pitcher on the mound.

Blair Calvo (8-0), who rests while designated hitter Dan Williams hits for him, had the best seat in the house for the scoring outburst. And his favorite part of the performance, as a pitcher?

“It made me happy we were scoring,” he said.

“We always seem to have that one big inning in us for each game, so I’m glad it came. It’s easier to pitch with a lead so you can try to get contact and not have to throw around guys.”

The Panthers would tack on three more runs in the sixth to put any shot of a Menendez comeback out of question. Thomas has grown accustomed to watching his team score in bursts, and with a spot in the 5A state playoffs on the line, watching a hard-fought game turn into a blowout was a welcomed sight.

“We’ve been doing it this way all year,” Thomas said. “I think one of the big things is that we turned from a team that wanted to win into a team that knew how to win. We’ve been able to find ways to win all year.”

Calvo’s pitching counterpart, Dyson, did his best to match the pace set — and for the first four innings, he did just that. Dyson allowed just one hit at that point, getting out of multiple jams and stranding five runners.

But five runs on two hits and three errors proved too much to overcome, scripting the story that the Falcons have played the losing part more times than they would like.

“It’s hard to recover from that,” Menendez coach Lee Geiger said. “The fifth inning has been our Achilles’ heel all season, I don’t have an explanation for it, but that’s when something bad happens in a lot of the games we’re close.”

With eight underclassmen starting this season — Pagliei, at shortstop, is the lone senior — Geiger remains excited for his team’s future while understanding the frustration of the present. He estimates that roughly 10 of his team’s 16 losses have come by three runs or less, and far too often those scoring explosions happen while he still has nine men on the field.

Though their season ended huddled along the shallow right field at Nease, Geiger expects his bevy of young talent to use that spot of grass to grow.

“We’re an extremely young team and you’re going to make mistakes, though that’s no an excuse,” Geiger said. “What we do from this point until the beginning of next year will determine whether or not we’re still sitting in right field having a sad meeting like tonight or getting ready to play in the state playoffs.”

As for Nease, their win in the semifinals guarantees them a spot in the Class 5A state playoffs. They’ll face Ponte Vedra for the district championship and the right to host at least their regional quarterfinal game.

But before they take the field against the Sharks, Thomas and his team already have something to look forward to.

“We get to practice on Thursday,” Thomas said.

In District 4-5A baseball action from earlier in the night, Ponte Vedra cruised to a 5-0 win over Matanzas.

Ponte Vedra improved to 15-11. Matt Deegan pitched a complete game four-hitter. He struck out 12 and walked one to improve to 5-2.

Leading the offense were Max Miller (2 for 3, double and walk); Walker Sheller (1 for 2, double, two RBIs) and Chris Levitt (1 for 1, two RBIs, walk and hit by pitch).